Free to Flee

A Naples Daily News investigation into how Florida law enforcement allows deadly drunk drivers to hit the road

By Jacob Carpenter - Naples Daily News

Drunk, deadly and free

It’s been 13 years since police say Roman Saldarriaga killed a 36-year-old Collier County mother of two. And ever since, he’s enjoyed a carefree life in Colombia, relaxing on the beach, paragliding over hilly terrain and appreciating scenic views from a high-rise hotel.

Investigators say Saldarriaga was drunk in September 2003 when he slammed into the back of Janelle Hail’s 1990 Ford Taurus, spinning her into the path of an oncoming Ford F-250 truck. But rather than arrest Saldarriaga at the scene, Florida Highway Patrol troopers let the then-19-year-old Colombian citizen go free. When they went to arrest Saldarriaga three months later, he couldn’t be found.

After missing their chance to arrest Saldarriaga, local police and prosecutors asked for his extradition, but Colombian officials refused. Today, Saldarriaga regularly posts on his Facebook page, a mix of personal photos, irreverent videos and political memes.

“I’m just sick of the whole situation, with how the government, the police, have treated people like me,” said Hail’s mother, Jacqueline Joseph, who still lives in Naples. “They just gave him an out. The pain is with me every day.”

In hundreds of cases across Florida, law enforcement authorities have allowed DUI manslaughter suspects to walk away from a crash scene without being immediately arrested, giving some suspects a chance to escape justice entirely. Other suspects remained free for months — and sometimes years — without facing charges, a Naples Daily News investigation has found.

Law enforcement has done so even in cases in which the evidence appeared clear by their own standards: the suspect was drunk, driving and at fault, all elements necessary to establish probable cause for an arrest. Out of more than 1,500 DUI manslaughter cases in the past decade, about three-quarters of the suspects weren’t immediately arrested, state courts data shows.

The delays have allowed known drunken drivers to continue driving, committing other crimes and consuming alcohol, all with no court-ordered monitoring. They’ve also left victims’ relatives in limbo, angry at the lack of urgency shown by law enforcement.

Using state court data, traffic homicide case files and crash databases, the Daily News conducted a first-of-its-kind analysis of how law enforcement handled DUI manslaughter cases in Florida between 2005 and 2014, the most recent 10-year stretch of available data.

Among the findings:

■ At least 45 suspects accused of killing 57 people in DUI manslaughter cases are fugitives after law enforcement declined to arrest them immediately after the crash, then couldn’t find them later. Those fugitives, about half of whom weren’t U.S. citizens or didn’t have a license at the time of the crash, never had to surrender a passport, allowing them to easily flee the country. In one case, a drunk Miami man accused of killing five people went free, even though he wasn’t a U.S. citizen and had family in Nicaragua. Click here to view database »

■ In at least 66 cases, potentially high-risk suspects remained free for six months or more before their arrest, even though they’d been convicted of DUI within the previous five years or were driving on an invalid license. This despite a state law that identifies such defendants as a potential threat to society, whom judges should consider keeping in jail until their trial. One Broward County suspect spent 12 months free following his fatal crash, even though he’d already spent nearly two years in prison for driving on a revoked license and had a prior DUI. Click here to view database »

■ In at least 50 cases, suspects who weren’t immediately arrested went on to commit other misdemeanor and felony crimes before facing the DUI manslaughter charge. About two-thirds of them were booked for DUI, driving on a suspended or revoked license, or illegally possessing drugs, such as marijuana, cocaine and prescription pills. One Orlando-area suspect who had 12 prior arrests for possessing or selling cocaine went free after his fatal crash, only to be caught with cocaine for a 13th time two months later. Click here to view database »

■ In at least 150 cases, suspects remained free for a year or more until their arrest, either because law enforcement dragged out investigations or couldn’t find the suspects to make an arrest. In about three-quarters of those cases, law enforcement took more than 12 months to investigate before deciding to arrest the suspect, even though police generally agree that such investigations should take no more than three months to complete. In a northern Florida case that left a 12-year-old girl dead, investigators took 18 months to finish their investigation and arrest the suspect, who had a prior DUI conviction. Click here to view database »

■ The Florida Highway Patrol, the agency responsible for the bulk of traffic fatality investigations, accounted for 37 of the 45 fugitive cases and about two-thirds of the recent cases that took at least a year to complete. Records show some fatality cases sat untouched for months, as overworked troopers set them aside to complete more routine, non-criminal investigations. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which analyzes the evidence in most DUI manslaughter cases, also has contributed to delays, with some lab testing adding several months to the investigation.

■ Despite a common argument from investigators and prosecutors that delays in DUI arrests are the product of concerns that defendants will demand speedy trials, hundreds of DUI manslaughter cases have been successfully prosecuted in Florida after an immediate arrest. The Daily News could find no case of a DUI manslaughter charge being dropped due to a speedy trial demand in the 10 years of court data provided by the state.

Bueno said the patrol has “a great track record of successfully prosecuting these type of high-profile DUI manslaughter cases,” adding that the cases investigated by the Daily News represent “a very small fraction” of crashes. Bueno said the patrol has “sufficient staff” to handle its caseload.

“At the end of the day, our true north, our gauge, is we want to do as thorough, as complete a job as possible, so that we can ultimately serve justice to the family and hold that person accountable,” Bueno said.

But Scott Walter, who spent 25 years investigating traffic homicides for FHP before retiring in 2009, said DUI manslaughter cases should “be done as soon as possible,” and the patrol’s leadership hasn’t ensured that happens.

“They have to make the traffic homicide investigations more important in their whole realm of what they do as state troopers,” Walter said. “That is basically our bread and butter.”

For hundreds of families, it’s been a long wait for justice and accountability, one that could be shorter if law enforcement dedicated the necessary resources and showed more urgency.

“I just feel upset. I feel doubt about the system, how it works, how a person that did so much damage couldn’t be held,” said Elizabeth Perez, whose mother and sister were among five killed in 2011 Miami crash involving a now-fugitive suspect, Carlos Lacayo.

“The police let my family, and all of these other families, down.”

Escaping justice

For DUI manslaughter suspects, no charges means a green light to run from the law

On a dark Saturday morning just before dawn, 23-year-old Carlos Lacayo was drunk and speeding in his gray Honda Accord down Interstate 95 in Miami.

Not far away stood five stranded motorists on the side of the interstate, waiting for help after a fender bender. Among them was a housekeeper from Cuba, a soon-to-be medical student, an out-of-work mother of two, a McDonald’s employee in his early 20s and a single mother in dental school.

As other motorists cautiously crawled past the crash, Lacayo barreled into them at more than 80 mph, investigators and witnesses said.

Four of the victims died instantly. The fifth victim, whose legs were severed after she was pinned between the barrier, died six days later.

Within hours of the March 2011 crash, police appeared to have what they needed to arrest Lacayo, who still had a blood alcohol content of 0.12, above the legal limit of 0.08, about four hours after the crash. Yet troopers opted not to, and six months later, when they went to arrest Lacayo, they couldn’t find him.

“I would love to be able to do something to give us justice to this case, to all of us,” said Elizabeth Perez, whose mother and sister were among the victims. “But there’s only so much I was told I can do. I don’t know how to move forward.”

In 45 cases across Florida, stretching from Miami to the Panhandle, DUI manslaughter suspects have evaded capture for years after police decided not to immediately arrest them. As a result, there’s no justice yet for 57 fatal crash victims, many of whom were broadsided, T-boned and rear-ended into oncoming traffic by intoxicated drivers.

In each case, police suspected the at-fault driver was drunk when causing the fatal crash, yet the authorities decided to wait for an arrest. About half of them weren’t U.S. citizens — they often hailed from Central or South America — or didn’t have a driver’s license, according to state crash and driving records.

Most of the suspects have now spent several years on the run, including eight now missing for more than a decade.

“It makes no sense how it’s been handled in the beginning, the middle, or today,” said Dana Andrews, whose parents were killed in a Polk County crash involving a fugitive who’s been missing for nearly nine years.

“To them, it’s just a case file.”

Some police and prosecutors argue they have to investigate more before arresting a DUI manslaughter suspect, particularly when the circumstances of the crash aren’t immediately clear. In the meantime, they can only hope the suspects — who face up to 15 years in prison for each person killed — stick around to face justice.

“As difficult as that may sound, because it’s still in the investigation stage, I can’t control the actions of that person,” said FHP Lt. Greg Bueno, whose agency is leading the investigations of 37 fugitives. “I would hope, ethically, that that person would answer to those charges, and we’re certainly going to do everything we can do as a police agency to locate that person so that they can be held accountable.”

‘Needed to be made a priority’

To make an arrest in a DUI manslaughter case, investigators must show three things: the suspect was behind the wheel; the suspect was illegally intoxicated; and the suspect caused or contributed to the crash.

Soon after Lacayo’s crash, investigators appeared to have probable cause for all three.

At the scene, emergency responders pulled Lacayo from the driver’s seat of the crumpled Accord. At the hospital where Lacayo was taken, an orthopedic surgeon told a trooper that Lacayo had alcohol in his system, and Lacayo admitted to a trooper that he “had some drinks” at a club. Witnesses also told troopers that Lacayo was speeding and driving recklessly moments before the crash.

An initial report shows that investigators and prosecutors knew Lacayo was not a U.S. citizen — he was born in Nicaragua — yet they decided against making an immediate arrest. Instead, police and prosecutors spent five months working the case — with a couple snags holding it up.

“This case needed to be made a priority, and if it couldn’t be, we needed to know that so we could change how we proceeded on the case based on the correct information,” Hanan wrote.

Troopers were also slow to interview Percival Russell Jr., Lacayo’s passenger, who wasn’t questioned until three weeks after the wreck. Russell told the lead investigator that Lacayo was driving “above 80 or 90” mph after leaving Le Boulevard, a nightclub located six miles away from the crash scene. (Troopers would later estimate Lacayo’s speed at 86.5 mph by analyzing the scene and damage to Lacayo’s car.)

As law enforcement worked, Lacayo ran. Perez, the surviving relative of two victims, said she was told by investigators that Lacayo legally boarded a flight to Nicaragua, where several of his family members live. In a deposition related to a lawsuit, Lacayo’s mother, Claudia, said her son went missing about three months into the six-month investigation. She denied any knowledge of his whereabouts.

Had Lacayo been immediately arrested, he likely would have had to post a bond and surrender his passport, and a judge could have opted to attach a GPS monitor to him.

In Polk County, for example, three-time DUI convict Brian Dale Andrews has been on the run for nearly nine years following a June 2007 crash that killed Danny and Patricia McCown. The Highlands County husband and wife, who were both 59, had four children and five grandchildren between them.

Within two hours of the crash, hospital staff told troopers that Andrews had a 0.36 BAC, more than four times the legal limit. A witness at the scene reported seeing Andrews cross a median in his 1992 Cadillac Eldorado, slam head-on into the McCowns’ 2006 Chevy HHR, then get out of his car and try to run. Yet Andrews was released from the hospital with no charges, and an arrest warrant wasn’t secured until two months later.

Dana McCown, one of the couple’s three daughters, said investigators told her Andrews was tracked to Mexico at one point, but the search hit a dead-end.

“For the first two months, we thought he was sitting in jail. We didn’t have any idea that he had never actually been fully charged,” Dana McCown said. “The fact that he wasn’t charged with DUI manslaughter on the spot, it just afforded him the opportunity to take off.”

In Walton County, located east of Pensacola, FHP troopers decided not to immediately arrest Abraham Rodriguez on a DUI manslaughter charge following his single-vehicle crash that killed his 28-year-old passenger in 2006. One month later, when they were ready to charge Rodriguez, troopers couldn’t find him.

The Walton County Sheriff’s Office took over the search for Rodriguez, a common practice in cases involving fugitives. But there was a problem: Deputies there have no clue what Rodriguez looks like. Sheriff’s officials say FHP troopers didn’t give them a single photograph of Rodriguez, and the state doesn’t have a picture because Rodriguez didn’t have a driver’s license.

“We must go by the information given to us by the Florida Highway Patrol,” said Corey Dobridnia, the Sheriff’s Office public affairs coordinator, in a statement. “It is the Sheriff’s Office who must serve warrants, but in this case we are at a significant disadvantage.”

Even when suspects have admitted to foreign citizenship, investigators have allowed suspects to walk without immediate charges.

Following a March 2009 fatal crash in Broward County that killed Aracely Mendoza, 23, of Miami, driver Davydson DeOliviera Soares didn’t try to hide that he was a citizen of Brazil — which doesn’t extradite its own citizens — and that his family still lived there.

Despite significant evidence against Soares — he was driving the wrong way on a highway, he admitted to consuming several drinks before the crash and a trooper said “it’s obvious that I smell alcohol on your breath” — he was released with no charges. Twenty days later, troopers went to find Soares to arrest him, but that was enough of a head start. Seven years later, a warrant is still out for his arrest.

In the case of Roman Saldarriaga, the fugitive in a 2003 Collier County fatal crash that killed a 36-year-old mother of two, investigators tracked him down in his native Colombia after a long search, making an extradition request in 2009. But the Colombian government “will not extradite Saldarriaga on our charges,” a Collier County sheriff’s spokeswoman said. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., pledged to use “the full weight of our office” to get Saldarriaga back, but the effort went nowhere.

“I know that if I was a wealthy person, I could follow through, something could happen. But I can’t,” said Jacqueline Joseph, the victim’s mother.

The Highway Patrol is the lead investigative agency for 37 of the 45 active fugitive cases, including those of Andrews, Rodriguez, Soares and Saldarriaga. FHP Director Col. Gene Spaulding, a 22-year veteran of the patrol and a former supervisor of traffic homicide investigators, refused multiple interview requests. Agency spokespeople also refused to address specific aspects of individual investigations, including the reasons why some suspects weren’t immediately arrested.

Choice to arrest

About 150 times a year, police across Florida arrive at the scene of a fatal crash caused by a drunken driver who survives the wreck.

Within hours, authorities have to answer two important questions: Do they have enough evidence to arrest the suspect? And if so, do they want to?

In at least 1,050 DUI manslaughter cases since 2005, nearly three-quarters of all cases, police across Florida have opted not to make an immediate arrest, court records show.

Many active investigators and prosecutors argue the decision to not immediately detain most suspects is rooted in sound law enforcement principles. They say DUI manslaughter investigations are complex, time-consuming endeavors, requiring lab analysis of blood, extensive scene analysis and detailed investigative reports. An early arrest, they say, could threaten a successful prosecution, particularly if a defendant demands a speedy trial and all the evidence can’t be processed within the 180-day speedy trial window.

“The unfortunate reality is sometimes cases take time to evolve, take time to investigate,” said Florida Highway Patrol Lt. Greg Bueno. “We build a case to make an arrest.”

However, a Naples Daily News analysis of state court data shows concerns about speedy trial and hasty prosecutions have been unfounded, with the data showing neither issue has led to guilty drivers going free.

Instead, the decision not to arrest DUI manslaughter suspects has allowed some deadly drunken drivers to escape justice as fugitives, and others to go on to commit other crimes while free. The delay to arrest in some cases can last years, a practice that angers many victims’ families.

Out of more than 1,500 DUI manslaughter cases filed between 2005 and 2014, the most recent decade-long stretch with available state court data, the Daily News could not find a single case dismissed due to prosecutors failing to meet a speedy trial. In that time, just one case went to trial within six months of a fatal crash. It resulted in a conviction.

Prosecutors have also been able to successfully prosecute nearly all defendants who were immediately arrested, with about 94 percent getting convicted at trial or accepting a plea agreement, the court data show.

“If you have probable cause, there’s no reason not to go ahead and make the arrest and file charges,” said former prosecutor Kim Seace, who created a traffic homicide unit in the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office in 2004. “The state is going to be able to pull it together before speedy trial.”

‘Not going to rush’

There’s no state law or protocol for determining when to make an immediate arrest in DUI manslaughter cases. FHP policies allow troopers to make an on-scene arrest, but there’s no formal guidance for making such a decision.

“If an on-scene investigation reveals the necessity for an immediate arrest, the traffic homicide investigator will initiate the procedure,” the policy states.

Bueno said troopers rely on evidence at the crash site to establish probable cause for an immediate arrest, often in consultation with prosecutors.

He added that troopers don’t always make an immediate arrest because they are mindful of the elements needed to convict suspects — proof that the driver was drunk, behind the wheel and at fault. Getting those elements can take months, he said.

“Again, it’s easy to say those things, but to be able to articulate that to beyond a reasonable doubt in a courtroom setting is a very high burden of proof,” he said.

Police and prosecutors most commonly offer two reasons for delaying an arrest.

First, they say a quick arrest could trigger a speedy trial demand, and the six-month window might not be enough time to put together a successful prosecution, which could force dismissal of charges.

“We’re just not going to rush (arrests) for the sake of getting someone in jail, because we want the prosecution to stick,” said Carrie Horstman, a spokeswoman for the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, where deputies didn’t immediately arrest a now-fugitive suspect on a DUI manslaughter charge in May 2014.

Second, police and prosecutors argue, as they do in all criminal cases, that they’re concerned about jumping to an early conclusion and jailing an innocent person.

“It’s a difficult balance, and the ultimate answer is that we want to do it right, in the right way, and that takes time,” said David I. Gilbert, senior trial counsel for the State Attorney’s Office in Miami-Dade County.

Is speedy an excuse?

Both of those rationales, however, run counter to the reality of most DUI manslaughter cases in Florida.

In virtually every case, defendants opt to waive their speedy trial rights, often on the advice of their defense lawyers who need time to prepare. On average, DUI manslaughter cases that go to trial take just under two years to get in front of a jury, state court data shows.

Scott Blanchette, a traffic homicide investigator with the St. Petersburg Police Department, said his agency “really doesn’t fear speedy trial because it really never happens.”

“Even if it did, we don’t care,” Blanchette said. “We would work 24-7, and our department would approve it, if we were really under the gun.”

As a result, St. Petersburg police haven’t been shy about making immediate arrests. Since 2010, St. Petersburg police have led 13 DUI manslaughter investigations, making arrests within a week of the crash in 10 of those cases. The longest investigation lasted 99 days. None of the cases have been dropped or resulted in acquittals.

When asked about the speedy trial data, Bueno replied: “What I can tell you is that speedy trial does exist. There are some phenomenal defense attorneys that are experts in defending DUI individuals, and especially on a high felony of the second-degree level or higher DUI manslaughter levels.”

Court data also refutes the idea that police and prosecutors are routinely bungling investigations or jumping to incorrect conclusions by immediately arresting an innocent person.

Between 2005 and 2014, prosecutors obtained a plea agreement or a guilty verdict against 94 percent of the roughly 350 DUI manslaughter suspects arrested within a week of a fatal crash, according to state courts data. Only one case resulted in an acquittal. The remaining cases had charges dropped, or charges reduced to noncriminal offenses, the data show.

In Miami-Dade County, the local police have been particularly quick to arrest DUI manslaughter suspects, yet prosecutors have routinely secured pleas for prison time. Out of 24 resolved cases in a recent five-year stretch, 20 were sentenced to prison, two received lengthy probation terms and two had their charges reduced to noncriminal traffic citations.

Gilbert said police and prosecutors in Miami have regularly pulled together DUI manslaughter cases following an immediate arrest, but it’s not always an ideal situation.

“Sometimes you can do things when you’re forced to, because you have to,” Gilbert said. “There are also times that quality can be sacrificed in the name of expediency. Can that negatively impact a case? Absolutely.”

‘It’s so painful’

For nearly five years, Daymarie Melendez has wondered if justice would have been served if police had handled her 20-year-old daughter’s killing on a western Miami-Dade County road differently.

In July 2011, Eusebio Duarte Guido, a two-time DUI convict, turned his green 1998 Mercury Villager in front of a motorcycle carrying Melendez’s daughter, Krystine Bermudez, troopers said. The motorcycle slammed into the side of the van, killing Bermudez and her driver, 25-year-old Yaisey Cardentey.

At the scene, an off-duty cop and another witness told investigators that Duarte Guido turned into the path of the motorcycle, got out of the van alone and appeared intoxicated. The off-duty cop, Agustin Rodriguez, reported that Duarte Guido was slurring his speech and had bloodshot eyes.

“When I found out that this man was not arrested, it was such a travesty of justice,” Melendez said.

But investigators had to rule out the possibility the motorcycle was at fault in the accident by speeding. Witnesses gave varying accounts of how fast Cardentey was traveling, with one putting him at about 80 mph.

By analyzing the scene and the damage to both vehicles, troopers estimated the motorcycle’s speed at 28 mph to 43 mph, well within the 45-mph limit. But it took them 3 ½ months to reach that conclusion — even though both vehicles were available to investigators from day one — and to decide to charge Duarte Guido with DUI manslaughter. When they went to make the arrest in October 2011, Duarte Guido had taken off.

Melendez searched herself for Duarte Guido, going door-to-door in his southwestern Miami neighborhood, hoping to find the fugitive still living in his small, single-story home. She showed his picture to neighbors, and some said they recognized the man known as Luis — Duarte Guido’s middle name — but hadn’t seen him recently.

And so Melendez is left with days like July 11, 2015, the anniversary of her daughter’s killing. It’s become a family tradition to drive to Bermudez’s grave to honor the young mother, who on the day she died had an 8-month-old daughter, Gyselle, and a letter of acceptance from the University of Miami.

At the cemetery, seven relatives gathered in a circle and said a prayer.

“It is only with your help Lord that I have made it today,” Melendez said as she fought back tears. “I thank you for everyone here today and ask you to bless them.”

Melendez sat down and touched her daughter’s headstone, gently rubbing her fingers over her daughter’s name.

Before they left, Bermudez’s cousin let go of a yellow mylar balloon. Together, they watched as the wind carried it toward the nearby highway.

“I’ll tell you what I wish,” Melendez said. “I wish that no one would ever have to go through what I’m going through. Not even an enemy. Because the simple fact that it’s so painful, so raw, that you don’t want anyone going through that.”

Back on the streets

Decision not to arrest puts dangerous drivers on streets, allows suspects to commit new crimes

By age 31, Jason Marshall had proven he shouldn’t be driving a car.

Seven times, police caught Marshall for driving on a suspended or revoked license. During the seventh arrest, in 2006, Marshall appeared intoxicated and refused a breath test, earning him a two-year prison sentence. After he got out in 2008, police ticketed Marshall three times for speeding, once for going 58 mph in a 30-mph zone.

So in February 2011, when Marshall drunkenly slammed his Ford E-250 van into the back of Derek Arango’s idling Ford Fusion, killing the 23-year-old, Arango’s father expected Marshall would be taken off the streets for good.

Instead, Marshall remained free for 12 months, facing no charges as the Hollywood Police Department in Broward County conducted a year-long investigation.

Taken together, these cases account for about 15 percent of the more than 1,500 DUI manslaughter cases prosecuted throughout the state between 2005 and 2014, the most recent decade-long stretch with available data.

For years, Florida law enforcement agencies have routinely decided not to immediately detain DUI manslaughter suspects, even when it appeared the suspect was driving, was drunk and was responsible for the crash — all factors needed for probable cause to make an arrest. The decision not to make an immediate arrest, some investigators say, provides time to conduct full-blown investigations that are more likely to lead to convictions.

“We take a great deal of pride in looking at the big picture, that we want to successfully prosecute this person and meet the standards where this person is going to be held accountable to the full extent of the law,” said Florida Highway Patrol Lt. Greg Bueno, whose agency investigates most of the state’s fatal crashes.

But those investigations should take no more than three months to complete, according to FHP policies and interviews with traffic homicide investigators. And court records show law enforcement agencies are routinely missing that deadline.

Interviews and case records show overworked investigators have allowed investigations to languish for months as they tend to more routine crashes, most of which don’t result in criminal charges. State labs have also struggled to keep up with the workload of analyzing evidence, leading police to fear they might not have all the evidence back in time if a defendant demands a speedy trial to occur with six months.

It’s left relatives of victims stunned by the lack of urgency shown by law enforcement after a fatal crash, leaving them helpless and frustrated during a time of grief.

“I just figured it was something that got swept under the rug and there was nothing we could do. They hung us out to dry,” said Kenneth Rewis, whose relatives waited 366 days for a DUI manslaughter warrant to be issued for Mitchell Kinsman in the October 2013 Sumter County crash that killed their 88-year-old father, Kibbie. Kinsman is serving 13 1/2 years in prison after pleading guilty in September to DUI manslaughter and three other charges.

‘Way too much time’

Derek Arango was on the path to changing his life in early 2011.

Fresh out of a relationship, he had moved from New York City to his hometown of Hollywood, just south of Fort Lauderdale. He needed stability, so living near his parents and sister, Nicole, suited him. In the coming months, he and Nicole planned to start nursing school together.

On the morning of February 20, 2011, Arango was en route to pick up Nicole when he stopped at a red right. Suddenly, a van smashed into the back of Arango’s sedan, catapulting it more than 100 feet and into the oncoming traffic lane. Arango was hospitalized, but within hours, he had died of his injuries.

“Physically, there was no trauma on him, but because of it being a rear-end accident, it was a trauma to his neck,” said Nicole Eraso, who was with her brother when he died. “He had fractures in his neck that weren’t sustainable for life.”

Within days of the crash, police had all of the factors establishing probable cause to arrest Jason Marshall.

Two witnesses and a Hollywood police officer reported at the scene that Marshall was the driver of the van. Two officers both reported they smelled alcohol on Marshall’s breath.

Two separate tests performed over the next eight days would show Marshall’s blood-alcohol content at 0.16, twice the legal limit of .08 nearly an hour after the crash. Surveillance video from a nearby gas station also captured the crash, showing Marshall’s vehicle ramming into Arango’s Ford Fusion as it innocently idled at the red light.

Despite the evidence, and despite Marshall’s checkered record, Hollywood police waited more than a year to make an arrest.

For the first six months, Nicole Eraso said, officers repeatedly told her they were waiting on toxicology results. Later, officers said they needed additional time to complete their investigation before making an arrest.

Records, however, show Florida Department of Law Enforcement analysts completed tests showing a BAC of 0.16 on February 24, 2011, four days after the crash. Four days after that, a doctor with the Broward County Medical Examiner authored a report reaching the same conclusion.

In an email to the Daily News, the lead investigator, Officer Brian Joynt, blamed the Medical Examiner’s Office, saying it took “six to 10 months” to learn the lab reports were ready, even though the tests had been completed within days of receiving the evidence. He also blamed an internal procedure of waiting on the State Attorney’s Office to recommend which charges should be filed. That procedure has been changed and issues at the Medical Examiner’s Office have been fixed, he said.

“Due to the time-consuming parts of traffic homicide investigations that still exist, they will never be handled quickly like a burglary or a robbery,” Joynt said.

Marshall was eventually arrested and pleaded no contest to DUI manslaughter, receiving 25 years in prison as a habitual felony offender. But for Nicole Eraso, that doesn’t excuse the fact that it took 12 months to charge him.

“That’s way too much time when you know that this person caused the accident, when you have a video, when you have witnesses and everything,” Eraso said. “A year is way too long. Way too long.”

She was drunk again 12 months later when Cocoa police spotted her driving a red 2001 Dodge Neon five miles from the scene of Pleima’s death.

At that point, McQueen hadn’t yet been arrested on the DUI manslaughter case, which would come four months after her DUI arrest. Records show the manslaughter case was reassigned to a new trooper midway through the investigation, and FDLE took 5 ½ months to analyze DNA samples from the SUV.

In the time between their fatal crash and eventual DUI manslaughter arrest, 10 suspects were caught driving drunk again; 17 were booked for illegally possessing drugs; and 12 continued to drive on a suspended or revoked license, court records show. Charges in additional arrests included domestic violence, aggravated assault, child neglect, burglary and other crimes. None included DUI manslaughter.

Even in cases when the suspect had a history of offenses considered a potential threat, police have allowed at least 68 suspects to walk free for months, showing little urgency, the Daily News found.

Florida law specifically gives judges the discretion to keep a DUI manslaughter defendant in jail before trial if they have prior convictions for DUI or driving on a suspended or revoked license. The law also notes driving with a suspended license at the time of the fatal crash as a factor to consider for pretrial detention.

At the time of an August 2013 crash that killed two adults and two children, ages 13 and 15, Eddie Lazo didn’t have a Florida driver’s license. His driving record in South Carolina, where his license expired in 2004, showed eight suspensions and two DUI arrests.

Still, troopers would take 14 months to wrap up the case and get a warrant. FHP records show the lead investigator, Cpl. Linda Albritton, had to focus on other cases and went on extended family sick leave during that time.

In at least 13 cases, suspects spent at least 90 days free without facing DUI manslaughter charges, even though they had a Florida DUI conviction in the five years prior, court records show.

While felony drug convictions are not specifically identified as prior offenses considered a potential threat, judges have wide latitude to determine who poses “a threat of harm to the community.”

Ball admitted at the scene to taking “mollies and Ecstasy, along with a lot of marijuana” when his 1995 Mitsubishi Montero SUV crashed into the 1995 BMW 740 sedan that Williams was driving. And Ball’s passenger blamed the crash on Ball recklessly running a red light.

Two months into what would be a four-month DUI manslaughter investigation, Orlando police busted him with cocaine for a 13th time, finding two grams on him. Because he hadn’t been charged in the fatal crash and didn’t risk a bond revocation, Ball posted $2,250 bail and was back out on the street.

“He should have been locked up from the minute, that instant after it happened,” said Williams’ mother, Sheron McIntyre. Ball pleaded no contest to a vehicular homicide charge in October 2015 and received 22 years in prison.

‘Just very disappointing’

There’s a consensus among police and prosecutors that, barring anything unusual, DUI manslaughter investigations should take no more than three months to complete.

FHP policies set a 90-day deadline for traffic homicide reports to be completed. Michael Cherup, a recently retired investigator at the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, said 60 days is a good target for completion, with a 30-day grace period. Wade Bartlett, administrator of the National Association of Professional Accident Reconstruction Specialists, said it “really only takes four weeks of work” to finish a case if investigators have no other responsibilities or distractions.

But across Florida, DUI manslaughter suspects remain free for months, sometimes years, as families suffer through long waits for justice.

Most often, this happens when law enforcement officials take months to complete their work. In 113 cases since 2005, police and prosecutors waited at least a year to obtain an arrest warrant.

That’s what happened in the case of Jason Wall, the driver in a September 2011 single-vehicle crash that killed his passenger in rural Taylor County, about 75 miles southeast of Tallahassee. Investigators took 19 months to complete their report and arrest Wall, in part because Florida Department of Law Enforcement analysts needed several months to produce lab results that would help prove who was driving the SUV.

Keith Walker, the father of 28-year-old victim Erin Lawless, said Wall’s defense lawyer “tore us apart” at trial about the delay, insinuating the gap between the crash and arrest reflected weakness in the case. Wall was ultimately convicted and received 15 years in prison.

“I know they can’t devote 100 percent just to this case, but it just takes so long and there are so many little things and maneuvers to delay this thing,” Walker said. “It’s been a long four years.”

Within hours of a December 2001 head-on crash that killed Williane Cyriaque, a 47-year-old nurse from Immokalee, troopers knew the surviving driver, Alejandro Garcia, had a blood-alcohol content of four times the legal limit. On the scene in Lee County, witnesses placed Garcia as the at-fault driver.

Still, troopers released Garcia, deciding they needed to investigate for another two months. In the meantime, troopers lost track of Garcia. For eight years, he eluded capture, until Collier deputies busted him sitting in an Immokalee parking lot with an open container of alcohol in January 2010.

“The whole thing was just very disappointing,” said Cyriaque’s niece, Danielle Cyriaque-Jackson. “We all knew sooner or later that something was going to happen. He was eventually going to do something where people would put two and two together. But we were just trying to move on.”

Justice, at a cost

Despite delays in the 232 cases identified by the Daily News — suspects who committed other crimes, suspects who remained free despite risk factors, and suspects who remained free for a year or more — justice was served in the vast majority of the cases. Prosecutors secured convictions or plea agreements in 95 percent of the cases.

Few people understand the frustration of long investigations, as well as the ultimate satisfaction of justice, quite like Adam Mait, a former felony prosecutor in Miami whose father, Steven, was killed by a drunk driver in March 2009. Mait is now in private practice.

Investigators said Paul Inkeles, a psychologist whose license was suspended after a heroin and cocaine overdose, was out on bond in an unrelated heroin and cocaine possession case when he killed Steven Mait.

Inkeles was driving 57 mph in a 35-mph zone when he slammed into Mait’s Mercedes-Benz. At the time of the crash, Inkeles had 15 grams of cocaine, 5 grams of methamphetamine and syringes on him.

But Coral Springs police let Inkeles walk. He wouldn’t be charged for 11 months. Adam Mait said investigators told him they were waiting for labs to finish analyzing Inkeles’ blood (it showed cocaine, oxycodone and several other narcotics and anti-anxiety medications in his system).

Inkeles would spend five of those 11 months free, until Broward sheriff’s deputies caught him again with cocaine.

“The guy clearly had a problem,” Mait said, “and the fact that he was driving around, that’s clearly a danger to society.”

Ultimately, Inkeles pleaded to DUI manslaughter and received 7 years in prison, leaving Mait with conflicting feelings about the handling of the case.

“I was really frustrated, in the moment, that they wanted to take their time,” Mait said. “I wish it had been brought more quickly, but at the end of the day, I can say that justice was served.”

An overworked system

Investigating agencies have struggled to keep up with workload

More than a year after a drunken driver killed 12-year-old Megan Rigdon, investigators struggled to wrap up their case with an arrest.

Not because there was a lack of evidence. Hours after the northern Florida crash, troopers knew who the drunk driver was. Within days, they had proof that he caused the accident. And within three weeks, they confirmed his blood alcohol was nearly three times the legal limit of .08.

Still, it took 18 months for troopers to arrest Megan’s killer.

During that time, the lead investigator, Florida Highway Patrol Cpl. Lena Ward, was assigned to investigate more than a dozen other traffic fatalities, each of which required a full report. For three months, she had to devote most of her time to another DUI manslaughter case, leaving Megan’s investigation behind.

All the while, Joshua Orndorff, who already had an earlier DUI conviction and was driving with a revoked license, remained a free man despite what troopers knew about his role in Megan’s killing. It would take a year and a half — six times longer than FHP’s own policy dictates — for Ward to complete the investigation and make the arrest.

Hundreds of DUI manslaughter suspects like Orndorff remained free for months, even years, at a time because of delays in investigations. And most of the delays can be found in the Florida Highway Patrol, a Naples Daily News investigation found. Records in some long-delayed cases, as well as a database of troopers’ caseloads, show overworked FHP investigators have allowed DUI manslaughter cases to languish for months as they tended to more routine, non-criminal crashes, the newspaper’s investigation found.

“One of the problems that they’ve always had is the amount of manpower,” said Scott Walter, who spent 25 years investigating traffic homicide cases for the FHP before retiring in 2009. “There’s never been enough troopers.”

As a result, dozens of DUI manslaughter suspects got a head-start to escape justice, others went on to commit additional crimes while free, and dangerous drivers remained on the road.

Between 2005 and 2014, 155 DUI manslaughter suspects remained free for a year or more as Florida agencies investigated their cases, according to the most recent 10-year stretch of available data. From 2010 to 2014, the only period in which investigative agencies are identified in a statewide database of traffic crashes, FHP troopers took a year or more to make an arrest in 48 DUI manslaughter cases, despite the agency’s own policies that state such investigations should be completed within three months. All other Florida police agencies accounted for 19 such cases combined, according to court records and the crash database.

Similar delays have been seen at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s crime labs, which analyze evidence in most of the state’s DUI manslaughter cases. Some requests have taken months to complete, including blood tests that show the amount of drugs in a driver’s system. FDLE administrators say low pay has caused high staff turnover, leading to a backlog of evidence.

“The impact is very real in terms of both financial and productivity measures,” FDLE administrators wrote last year in a request for additional funding.

FHP Lt. Greg Bueno said the patrol has enough traffic homicide investigators — about 115 — to handle its workload.

“The reality of it is, we have sufficient staff,” Bueno said. “Our investigators are highly trained and they’re motivated to seek justice for the family and to hold these drivers accountable.”

But Wade Bartlett, administrator of National Association of Professional Accident Reconstruction Specialists, said state traffic agencies are routinely underfunded and understaffed across the country, resulting in the months-long delays seen in states such as Florida.

“I know lots of places where it’s eight, nine, 10, 12 months before an investigation is successfully completed,” Bartlett said. “And it’s because (investigators’) work is so fragmented and there’s always another fire to put out.”

Eighteen months, no arrest

That fragmentation became clear when troopers investigated who killed Megan.

Within three days of the wreck, Ward wrote in a sworn affidavit that Orndorff caused the collision by running a stop sign in his 2002 Honda S2000 convertible. Three weeks later, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement verified that Orndorff had a blood-alcohol content of .238, three times the legal limit, about an hour after the crash.

Still, troopers didn’t arrest Orndorff.

Five months into the investigation, records show Ward was pulled off to work on a Dixie County DUI manslaughter crash that resulted in the immediate arrest of Makion Kirkland.

Three separate times over the next three months, notations are made in an FHP case tracking system that Ward “has devoted her time to another report with an on-scene arrest,” a reference to the Kirkland case. (Troopers routinely triage crash investigations, and those with on-scene arrest take precedence over those without one.)

It wasn’t until February 2014 — nine months after the Orndorff crash — that Ward “started working on this case again,” FHP case notes show. Ward then needed nine more months to finish her investigation and get an arrest warrant, for reasons that aren’t listed in case notes. The Florida Highway Patrol refused to answer questions on specific investigations.

During the 18 months it took to investigate Megan’s killing, Ward was assigned to handle 17 other fatal traffic crashes. Only two of those cases resulted in criminal charges.

Walter, the retired FHP investigator, said troopers are often asked to do too much, leaving DUI manslaughter investigations to languish. The FHP policy manual requires such investigations to take no more than 90 days, but Walter called that “an impossible goal” given staffing levels.

On average, the most experienced FHP traffic homicide investigators take on about 10 to 15 fatal crash cases per year. Most are innocent accidents or single-vehicle fatalities that result in no criminal charges, but each case requires a follow-up investigation and detailed report. In addition to working these cases, troopers are required to undergo training, help with other cases and sometimes perform routine patrols.

Walter said overworked troopers worry that if they make an on-scene arrest for DUI manslaughter, they won’t have time to finish their investigation if a defendant demands a speedy trial to be held within six months.

“Only a few times were there (cases) that I made an arrests on either the night or the day after the accident,” Walter said. “That was because as long as I was working traffic homicides, I was never caught up with the Highway Patrol until the day I retired.”

Like FHP, the state labs have struggled to keep up with their workload, causing troopers to put off making arrests.

FDLE typically returns blood alcohol results of suspects within 15 to 60 days, close to its standard of 40 days. But it has sometimes taken months to analyze blood for the presence and amount of drugs — tests which are sometimes farmed out to the University of Florida’s toxicology labs — and to analyze trace evidence, such as parts of a damaged car.

That time lag frustrated the family of Naples resident Jennifer Jenkins, who had given birth to her first child, Ashley, just two months before she was killed in a December 2011 crash in rural Hardee County.

It took 5 ½ months for FDLE and the University of Florida to report that Michael Phillips was high on methamphetamine and two anti-anxiety medications when he drove his semi-trailer truck into oncoming traffic in rural Hardee County, slamming head-on into the 2005 Toyota Corolla that Jenkins, 35, was driving. The crash also killed Jenkins’ passenger, lifelong friend Kathleen O’Callaghan, 34. Jenkins’ husband, Daniel, was following behind his wife and witnessed the crash.

After receiving the blood analysis, troopers took another five months to finish their investigation and arrest Phillips. His criminal case is still pending more than four years later.

Sharon Mahar, Jenkins’ mother, kept meticulous notes documenting how long it took investigators to work the deadly crash. In a three-page letter written to Gov. Rick Scott in May 2013, Mahar pleaded with him “to read the letter yourself and see on a personal level what occurs to citizens of your state” in these cases. She praised the investigator working “under such a heavy caseload and shortage of manpower” in her daughter’s killing, and made several requests of Scott.

Mahar wrote that she hoped Scott would “review budget cuts that have reduced the number of accident investigators and prolonged the agony of families affected by these events” and “seek to have more than one expert in the state that reviews these toxicology reports.”

Mahar received a response from Scott, in which he said he shared the letter with the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles and his office of Policy and Budget. Mahar said she didn’t hear about any changes made in response to her letter.

“Unfortunately I’ve found in most of these cases that the willingness to be helpful is not there,” Mahar said. “I will always remember how frustrating this process was.”

Similar waits dogged the investigation of Nicole Moore, who in February 2013 was driving on a suspended license for a prior DUI when she rear-ended Diane Jaffe’s scooter on a six-lane road, killing the 50-year-old. Within three weeks, FDLE analyzed Moore’s blood, which was taken two hours after the crash, and reported she had a 0.11 BAC.

Investigators, though, had to determine whether Moore’s actions caused the crash, or if Jaffe was driving without her lights on, which could absolve Moore of any DUI manslaughter charges. To do that, troopers sent out filaments to FDLE for analysis in early March 2013, about two weeks after the crash.

It would take eight months for FDLE to report back.

The analysis would ultimately prove inconclusive, but troopers kept their case open during that time, waiting for the results. Moore would eventually be arrested after a 16-month investigation and convicted in February on charges of DUI manslaughter, leaving the scene and driving without a valid license.

A matter of staff

FHP officials say they’re content with their staffing levels on traffic homicide cases, which have held steady in recent years. Between 2011 and 2015, about 105 to 115 troopers have led at least five fatal crashes investigations each year, FHP records show.

“We’re trying to expose all of our rank-and-file (to) how to do a basic traffic homicide investigation,” Bueno said.

The leadership of FDLE, however, says its staffing issues are causing backlogs in producing lab test results.

In the past five years, 42 FDLE scientists have left for higher-paying jobs at private and locally-run labs, where salaries are about 20 to 40 percent higher, administrators said. The agency employs about 300 lab analysts and supervisors.

High turnover is particularly challenging in crime labs, administrators said, because it can take more than two years to train a new analyst. They estimated that productivity could increase 25 percent if staff turnover wasn’t so high.

Molly Best, an FDLE spokeswoman, said turnover has hit labs that test blood for drugs and alcohol particularly hard.

“The FDLE toxicology section, over the last four years, has experienced periods of time where over 50 percent of the staff were tied up in training,” Best said in an email. FDLE refused requests for an interview with David Coffman, the agency’s director of forensic services.

Staffing issues have been significant enough that FDLE administrators are asking for funding to give raises of $10,000 to $12,000 to about 260 of its nearly 300 crime lab analysts and supervisors.

In November 2015, Scott proposed an $8.5 million funding bump for FDLE, with $4 million put toward staff salaries. The Florida Legislature is set to approve its budget Friday and send it to Scott.

Fair and swift justice

As some agencies struggle with DUI manslaughter cases, others finish them quickly – and get convictions

When a DUI manslaughter case came across her desk in 2004, Hillsborough County prosecutor Kim Seace called the victim’s relatives and heard the shocking news: a year had passed since the fatal crash, and nobody from her office had called the victim’s family.

“That really troubled me,” Seace said.

Within months, Seace created a dedicated traffic homicide unit at the State Attorney’s Office in Hillsborough County, where police and prosecutors have swiftly and fairly doled out justice in DUI manslaughter cases, records show. Seace said she wanted to bring urgency to DUI manslaughter cases and fill the holes that can make them drag on.

“I saw that there was a gap and it didn’t exist on the regular homicide cases,” she said. “So that was a first step to filling that gap, and the lack of communication between law enforcement and prosecutors. It helps.”

As some agencies have allowed DUI manslaughter cases to languish for a year or more, others have found ways to quickly investigate and prosecute the crime, particularly in cases where an immediate arrest is made. Police and prosecutors in these areas say resources and staffing are major components in their success, along with a focused culture of the entire law enforcement team working together.

In Hillsborough County, for example, state court records show about half of all DUI manslaughter suspects in the past decade were immediately arrested, compared to about one-fourth throughout the state. During that time, Hillsborough police worked about 80 DUI manslaughter cases, with only two dragging on for more than a year.

“I created a timeline with the law enforcement agencies that I worked with, and I stayed on top of them,” said Seace, who left the State Attorney’s Office for private practice in 2008.

“We’d have routine meetings to see what any holdups were. I think communication between those agencies is key. If you see a case lingering for a year or more, that’s definitely a problem.”

Of the 34 who were immediately arrested in Hillsborough County and have resolved their case, 32 were convicted or accepted plea agreements.

Across the bay, the St. Petersburg Police Department has investigated relatively few DUI manslaughter cases — it averages about two or three per year. But its officers have moved quickly on the crashes they catch. In 10 of its 13 DUI manslaughter crashes since 2010, St. Petersburg police arrested the suspect within a week. The department’s longest case took 99 days to result in an arrest.

Of those 13 suspects, seven have been sentenced to prison, four have pending cases, one jumped bail after his arrest and one committed suicide before trial.

Scott Blanchette, who’s part of the St. Petersburg Police Department’s four-person traffic homicide unit, said officers there have been encouraged to act quickly, with the assurance that the necessary staff will be provided in complicated cases or in the rare instance that a defendant demands a speedy trial occur within six months.

“Our goal is to make the arrest as soon as possible,” Blanchette said. “As long as we can determine fault and determine impairment, we’ll go ahead and make the arrest that night.”

In Palm Beach County, investigators have been more measured when making arrests, averaging about a four-month wait to detain a suspect. But during a recent five-year stretch, not a single case dragged on for more than 10 months and none of those suspects are fugitives, according to state court records. There, the county Sheriff’s Office has worked about two-thirds of the area’s DUI manslaughter investigations.

Ellen Roberts, who in 1993 created the Palm Beach County traffic homicide unit in the State Attorney’s Office, said her local Sheriff’s Office has invested heavily in working such cases, particularly compared to Florida Highway Patrol.

“They get the big budgets, and they get it from the county,” said Roberts, who retired in 2012 for private practice. “They want and get all the equipment that you can bring in. With all the technology that’s out there now, it’s foolish not to have all the instruments that can process the evidence so much quicker.”

Palm Beach and Pinellas counties benefit from local forensic labs, a rarity in the state, as do Miami-Dade, Broward and Indian River counties.

Pinellas County Forensic Lab Director Reta Newman said her lab averages about a week or two to complete blood-alcohol screenings, and about a month to analyze for the presence and quantity of drugs in a suspect’s system.

“I think it’s a huge help, because everything is so local and so fast here,” Newman said.

By contrast, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement averages about six weeks to produce blood-alcohol results, and drug analysis can take multiple months to complete. It doesn’t help, FDLE spokeswoman Molly Best said, that FDLE has just two toxicology labs — in Orlando and Tallahassee — that cover the entire state.

“Court testimony requirements can force an analyst to be out of the laboratory for several days at a time,” Best wrote in an email responding to questions from the Naples Daily News. “Pinellas County has no such travel constraints, so there is more time in the laboratory.”

Seace said moving quickly and prudently at all stages not only helps bring closure to grieving families, but bolsters the prosecution’s case.

“I think generally time does weaken the case from a prosecution standpoint and strengthen it from a defense standpoint. The witnesses can disappear, they don’t want to be involved, their memories fade,” Seace said.

“From the victim’s standpoint, it’s really taxing on their families when they’re going through a healing process, and then it’s a year later for an arrest. It’s like ripping a Band-Aid off.”

DUI forum

Panel: Florida law enforcement needs more training, support for DUI manslaughter cases

Sharon Mahar, Scott Walter and Donald Day have all become intimately familiar with how Florida handles cases of deadly impaired drivers.

And through their experiences — Mahar, the mother of a fatal crash victim; Walter, a former traffic homicide investigator; Day, a criminal defense lawyer — they’ve all reached the same conclusion: Florida can do better.

Speaking at a forum hosted March 16 by the Naples Daily News in response to the newspaper’s investigation, “Free to Flee,” the trio said state and local officials should provide more training and support for law enforcement working DUI manslaughter cases, so suspects are arrested sooner and victims’ families can receive justice in a more timely manner.

To better understand how DUI manslaughter cases are investigated and the reasons for the lengthy delays in many cases, more than 100 traffic homicide investigation reports, crash reports and arrest affidavits were obtained. Florida Highway Patrol databases were also obtained to verify the caseloads of troopers who investigate fatal traffic crashes.

More than 50 people were interviewed during the course of the reporting, including several investigators and prosecutors, both active and retired, and victims’ family members. Several state legislators and the office of Attorney General Pam Bondi were contacted, but all were unfamiliar with the issue, directed questions to local law enforcement or didn’t respond to inquiries.